INCIS
by JMK758
Summary: Star Trek postulated a Mirror Universe where things are not so brightly lit. This is a glimpse into what NCIS might be like, taken from the POV of a criminal captive. Please R&R, but don't spoil any surprises. Deathfic.
1. Prologue

A popular variant of the 'Star Trek' franchise featured the 'Terran Empire', with altered versions of familiar characters set in the 'Mirror Universe'. The 'Enterprise' series established that the Empire existed for many centuries, starting in its 'present' form by the 19th Century. Many authors have done MU stories. I've done several 'Star Trek' ones, but to my knowledge no one has explored what the NCIS might be like in such a world. Therefore I decided I would present the Empire's version of our familiar characters, as viewed from the eyes of one of INCIS' convicted criminals.  
Belisarius Productions owns the regular NCIS. No one owns their Mirror Universe counterparts but unfortunately I can't claim them either. I'm not making any money off this, it is for fun.  
One Caveat: If you're not familiar with Star Trek's 'Mirror Universe' or the 'Terran Empire', these are _not_ the people you are used to. _Thou hast been __**warned**_!  
Now sit back, pull up a glass and prepare to be shaken - _and_ stirred.  
Rated 'R' for Disturbing Imagery and Violence. Deathfic.

INCIS  
by JMK758  
Prologue

When I can drag my eyes open nothing has changed. I'm in the same ten foot square gunmetal-grey steel cell, surrounded by steel walls, steel deck, steel overhead, steel slab to sleep on - or in my case to lie on like a limp doll while trying to recover. Even the toilet in the corner of the room; angled just enough toward the wall to be really inconvenient - if I were in any condition to use it - is cold grey steel. It's even seat-less, requiring me to perch cautiously in the times I was able to use it. Hours - is it days - without food or water gradually eliminated the need for such 'domestic conveniences'.

I don't know how long it's been, the 400 watt bulb high out of reach never changes. I don't even actually sleep any kind of regular hours; even if I could sleep the beyond-daylight brightness ensures I'll have no rest. The only 'rest' I get is when I'm beaten unconscious; then I'm out until I revive. I do sleep occasionally, when I'm too exhausted to stay awake, but since they wake me for more torture at any odd minute my rest, if you can call it that, is so erratic it might as easily be noon as midnight.

They play games with my mind. While I'm unconscious they shave me so I have less of a way to judge how long I've been here. It could be an hour that I'm here, judging by the smoothness of my face, but I'm in far too much pain for these abuses to have been inflicted in one hour - or even one day - and I remember the reasons for every bruise and laceration. Even the burns from brief exposure to the explosion before I hit the river don't hurt as much as the bruises - and worse - that cover my body.

The only thing they don't do is wash me or change my clothing. My clothes are still the same, except covered with more and more blood. They do wash me though, if being deluged from the doorway with the stream from a fire hose that slams me into steel walls and along steel floor constitutes washing. They've done that twice already, leaving me to drip dry over a small drain in the middle of my cell. I suspect they do it more when they can't stand my stench anymore than for any regard for my well-being. It's no different than leaving me in the same clothes; why waste material on a soon-to-be corpse?

x

Sometime recently, during my last bout of unconsciousness, my left arm was encased in a cast and a sling slung about my neck. I remember the blood only vaguely, the beating less but the pain that comes with seeing my broken left arm is so immediate I'll remember it for as long as I live. An hour? It's funny; I couldn't identify this pain to a broken arm - if it is broken but I'll trust it is, until I saw it. Each beating blends into the next until it becomes hard to remember which injury is from when.

The only real constants in the routine of pain are the questions - the ones I can't answer because I don't know the damn answers - and the ones I _won't_.

x

The bolt being slammed back in the steel door in the right wall makes me jump. It's amazing I still have that much reflex left, but it's a conditioned response, like Pavlov's dogs. Ring a bell, they start to salivate, ready for a meal; throw that loud bolt and I cringe, and ready myself for agony.

The steel door opens away from me with that grinding that sets my nerves on edge. They know what that sound does to the soul, that's why they haven't oiled those hinges in fifty years. Through that door is blackness, hell as dark as the souls of the men who beat me. It's as black as their uniforms so I never know who is coming in until they do. Amazing how 400 watts can hurt my eyes so much and yet outside it's black as hell. I wonder if I'll ever learn how they do that before I'm beaten to a lump of broken, battered flesh that used to be human.

I have to have something to live for.

x

This time it's a woman who enters. At least I think it's a woman, I think I'm beyond being sure. Black hair frames a friendly white face, the expansion of her uniform top suggests breasts in a woman but I'm not sure what it passes for among the INCIS...

x

How can she manage a friendly smile - or is it the pleasurable anticipation of spending two or three hours beating me to death? Though she's hardly my size - I'd probably top her by nearly a foot if I could stand up - the space black uniform she wears dominates the room, denying the dazzling light far over our heads.

The door slams shut loud enough to make me jump; thunder in a ten square foot steel chamber.

Her shiny black leather uniform gleams in the searing light, covers her from boots to collar and shows only a single break; a gold metal badge in the form of a shield bears the emblem of the Imperial Navy, fronted by the Imperial sigil, an ancient Roman short sword piercing the Earth from pole to pole. That emblem is repeated as a metal badge upon the black cap she wears over equally lightless hair. Her black handled dagger is a claw in the sheath in her left pants leg, an equally black handled gun hangs like the hand of death in the holster at her right hip.

The uniform of an Officer of the Imperial Navy Criminal Inquisition Squadron is intended to strike fear into the innocent and guilty alike. No, strike that; when the INCIS gets hold of you, there are no innocents.

x

There is, of course, barely much use for a Navy, at least not a National one, not since the days when the Empire solidified its hold over most of the planet. The few remaining 'free' places grow fewer and more isolated with appalling rapidity; eventually to fall before a power that can no longer be resisted. For a time some places are left alone, being too small for notice. That is, until the Empire decides they're desirable resources; then they'll fall before irresistible, devastating might, absorbed into the collective power of the Empire. When the navy - formerly navies - of nearly an entire planet come against you, you fall; perhaps almost as fast as I did.

Small, isolated spots in smaller communities or hidden away contain pockets where people can temporarily enjoy a measure of anonymous safety; but countries and territories, being too large to escape notice, could not.

The point of no return was passed long ago, the Empire is supreme throughout the world, and there's no need for a Navy except as a tool of enforcement and subjugation, just like the Imperial Army and the Imperial Air Force and the Imperial...

Its purpose has long ago become obsolete. The Army and Navy, and the former Marines, now little more than Storm Troopers, have changed from defense to control and exist to maintain the 'Pax Imperium', the so-called 'Peace of the Empire'. It's a peace maintained not by a dove, but by the hawk.

But while the military watches the people, who watches the military? Or, as an ancient philosopher I once read observed; 'Qui custodiat ipsos custodies?', 'who watches the watchers?'

The answer is the INCIS. Long ago a device used to maintain justice on the high seas, now it's the arm of enforcement. While the power of the Navy has grown supreme, the power of such arms as INCIS has grown accordingly. Whatever it might have started out as, its job is now to police and enforce the 'Loyalty' of the conscripts under its control.

This woman, today's arm of that power, puts up a display of being very confident by coming in here without guards. But since I can barely raise my arms or move my legs, I'm in no condition to put up a fight, so I guess she's safe.

x

"Well," I say, glad to be able to speak through broken, cracked and parched lips, though my voice rasps, speaking to days without water. They've actually taken it easy on my mouth; can't get answers if I can't talk, but my throat is sandpaper and my voice like nothing I've ever heard. Will I ever hear my normal voice again? Probably not, so I don't waste what I've got by a king for water. "Have they sent me a beautiful woman to ease the pain of my last remaining hours?"

Since they're going to kill me, I've no reason not to be a smart-ass.

"Your previous Inquisitor was too enthusiastic," she glances pointedly at my wrapped arm, "and our Doctor had to fix you up. We need answers far more than we need another corpse."

"Thank you." Did I just say that? Turn off the auto-response circuit, please. "I'd hate to be in bad shape for my execution."

"Oh, there's no guarantee you're going to be executed. As a matter of fact, if you'd just answer our questions you could be free to go."

More likely I'd be free to go to Heaven. I figure I have a 50/50 shot at that, maybe 60/40, at least lately. It's far better odds than of walking out of here.

"Why don't you come over here so we can talk?" she asks with a pleasant snake-to-mongoose smile.

"Why don't you join me?" I tap the metal side of my slab, not particularly anxious to get up. Of course, if I don't cooperate they'll drag me, so why try? "Let's get comfortable."

There is something surreal about flirting with one's executioner, but like I said I've always been a bit of a smart-ass. That hasn't been beaten out of me yet and it's pretty much too late now to try.

"Indulge me," she requests with that maddening smile.

"Why?"

"You said it yourself, I'm a beautiful woman. Why not indulge me?"

Something about that question has a surreal sort of logic to it - or maybe I've just been hit in the head too many times. But if I were feeling normal I would rise for a lady, so I guess it makes a certain distorted sense - in some parallel universe somewhere.

x

Trying not to groan too loudly, I finally manage to struggle to sit up, itself a minor miracle I give myself ten brownie points for. Seeing her smile, wondering if she's planning to eat me for lunch - I'm so battered and dry I'd probably taste terrible - I haul myself off my slab and push up on screaming legs. Taking a step is more a matter of tilting into a controlled fall, and I make it across the room to her in a carefully controlled, lurching stagger.

"There," she says when I get my feet firmly planted, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"As Albert Einstein noted before he leveled the Japanese islands, 'everything's relative'."

"Einstein was a patriot."

I have no desire to discuss a half-century old uprising or object lesson. The Japanese thought they'd had a chance to rise up and be men, the Empire kicked them in the balls. Japanese women, the pretty ones, are alive while the Empire considers them useful, and the last two generations of slaves have been bred 'in vitro'.

Japanese men are extinct.

x

"You had some questions?"

"Yes," she confirms pleasantly, "let's start with an easy one." She smiles up at me, assuring me that "You'll find there's no need for unpleasantness with me." Now I recognize the game; 'bad Inquisitor, good Inquisitor'. I'd already spent several sessions (days?) with the bad one. If he was vinegar, then they've sent a Honey with the honey. "What's your name?"

Talk about an easy one; that was talc. "Your partner had that before we started."

"Indulge me," she repeats with that saccharin smile, so I make mine just as sweet.

"I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours."

She smiles in sweet anticipation and her hand flashes out before I can flinch, low at my pants.

She grabs me tightly and _squeezes_!

x

My agonized groan jumps fast to a full shriek as she twists hard, squeezing tightly with all her strength. I don't know how long I scream, amazed I still can. Her vice-like grip lasts an eternity until finally I can't draw another breath to scream anymore.

She lets go and my legs go out from under me. My knees slam down to the steel deck, acquiring yet two more bruises before I fall on my side, clutching myself, gasping hugely, feeling worse than I have in all my life.

I curl protectively, holding myself and just wanting to _die_ so the agony will stop.

"Now," she says with that sickeningly sweet smile as she steps in front of my face, "let's try this again, shall we?" She sounds so much more like a kindergarten teacher than an Inquisitor that a chill runs through me. I remember Miss Katrina, so long ago. She never scared me. This bitch...

"What is your name?"

I still can't speak; the agony is so great I can barely remember how to breathe. But the knowledge of what she'll do to me if I _don't _answer helps me to force the words out in a barely intelligible groan.

"Tim - Tim - othy - - - Mc - Gee."

I see her foot come up fast, too fast to avoid; I only manage to look away in time to save my jaw and avoid losing any teeth. The heavy boot crashes into my head, knocking me back.

The steel cell spins wildly even after my head stops, but I can't focus on anything but a cloud of black.

"Well, Timothy McGee, my name is Kait Todd..." The voice fades away and I'm sure no one turned off that light...


	2. Answers

Chapter One  
Answers

When the blackness fades away to too much light and renewed pain that floods through my body I force my eyes open. My mouth, my throat, they're drier than ever, and even a whisper would hurt too much to risk.

I find myself laying face down on the steel deck where I'd been left and I feel like my body is divided into two; those parts that hurt a lot and those that don't hurt quite as much yet. I'm confident that they'll eventually catch up. One thing you can say about the Imperial Navy Criminal Inquisition Squad; they know how to convince people to talk.

Me? Talking is the _last _thing I want to do. Silence buys me more time to live, though lately that's becoming less of a thing to be desired. I've never heard of anyone getting released by INCIS, at least not in any good condition. What my silence really buys is the lives and safety of my friends. Maybe some of them will hear about my fate, they'll realize I've been captured rather than killed and use the time and our own network to escape.

Maybe some already have; new lives, new identities, at least a chance for life. It's up to me to buy them as much more time as I can.

My coin? Pain.

x

It started innocently enough, if anything in the very shadow of the Imperial Palace could ever be described as innocent. Jim and I – Jim ... I wonder if he's lucky enough to be dead – we were just doing our regular business, 'Feed, Bait and Tackle' on the shore of the Potomac, when she came to us.

She was a _gorgeous_ redhead and the common workman's clothes she wore could hardly disguise a stupendous figure. Certainly they couldn't from Jim, but she was closer to my age than his and she hadn't come to us for a can of worms.

She needed transportation, that's what she told us in a low voice over my counter, her darting eyes seeing everything around us. I, of course, told her that the _Rachael_ isn't a passenger ship. Then she told us who had sent her and gave us the proper password.

I asked for the sign that goes with it, my hand on the gun under the counter. Had she not been able to give it I would have pulled the gun out and shot her between her eyes. I've done it before and safety is more important to my occasional secret passengers than squeamishness. It would do them no good if the line were infiltrated, but she gave me the sign and I told her she could stay in the feed cellar until dark.

It was three hours to full dark but we had no contact with each other. She was down below and Jim and I conducted our usual business until trade fell off with the day. First rule of this life; never vary your routine - _ever _- no matter how compelling the reason. Even Jim's uncovering and checking on the _Rachael_ that evening was in keeping with our routine. We went out for fish on a very irregular schedule, seemingly on the whim of the waves, so for my low black vessel to be seen uncovered and pulling out after dark never raised eyebrows. When we cast off this time, no one would suspect there was someone in the hold below.

Once clear of the harbor I set the black ship's auto-navigation on full. We would sail up the middle of the Potomac into the Palisades on a 'usual' trawling run. This time, however, the lines trailing behind us led to a net with a very convenient hole, lucky for the fish, unlucky for us. I would, of course, be suitably angry with my careless First Mate if we were stopped and the hole in this net was found. We would catch no fish on this trip, but nothing would slow us down either.

Going down below to where Jim and our passenger were, I passed through the outer door to the hold, closing it firmly behind me before opening the lighted interior.

The woman turned to me when I entered. The first thing she wanted to know was 'who's running the boat?'

Jim chuckled. 'The _Rachael_ knows where she's going,' he assured her confidently. He could handle the auto-system as well as I could; he'd installed most of its more sophisticated features.

'It's actually best no one's up top;' I told her; 'we're rigged for silent running. The paint that covers this ship is special; almost a hundred percent absorbent. There's not a single untreated metal surface to cast a reflection; that's why we keep her covered when not being used. The propellers are low under us so there's less wash; we're moving dead slow, not even raising a wake. It'll take four hours to reach the link. We drop you off and then four hours back, pulling into dock before dawn.'

'Sounds great,' she said, not sounding like she was trying to raise any enthusiasm. Just as well; the last time I was enthusiastic about anything ... I don't remember

'So, what brings you to us?' Jim had asked. Despite what I'd told him over and over he still wants to know the stories of our 'guests'. I'd told him that the less we knew; the better for everyone. As long as they had the password and sign, that was all we needed. But she was a beautiful woman and I doubt now that Jim will ever change.

She'd given him a sly look; 'I'll tell my story if you'll tell yours.'

'Deal.'

'You always did make deals too easily, kid,' I'd told him, knowing it would hardly do any good.

x

She'd given her name as 'Shavawn O'Mallory'. Whether it was or wasn't the truth I didn't care, it was a good Irish name. Then she'd given her occupation as 'Priest'.

'A _Priest_?' Jim seemed quite astonished, and I admit I was surprised as well. 'I haven't seen or heard of a Priest in years, certainly not a _woman_!'

'We're out there. We avoid the cities mostly, bring the Word of God to the people when we can, perform such service and offer such aid as we can to keep Faith alive; to keep _hope_ alive. We cannot neglect the cities; that is where we're most needed, but when we do come in we have to work quietly, secretly.'

'The Empire banned all religions decades ago,' he'd 'pointed out' to her, wholly unnecessarily, 'killed I don't know how many of you.'

'So you can see why we must be cautious.' Her tone had carried the obvious; Caution is everyone's middle name in the Empire. 'On this trip I conducted 42 baptisms, solemnized 51 marriages, served 37 Masses throughout the city; mostly in basements and secret rooms. But we learn to trust our instincts and mine told me it'd come time to go.'

'How do you find out who you can trust?'

She'd looked apprehensive at the question and I'd had enough. 'You ask too many damn questions, kid, and I've warned you before–!'

'But I've never even _met _a Priest in my life!' he'd protested with the urgency of someone who feels something valuable slipping through his fingers if he doesn't stop it. 'My parents tried to bring me up right but I've never even been baptized; my parents couldn't find–'

'I'll be happy to do it here and now if you like,' O'Mallory had offered, cutting off his impassioned rush. I suppose that when an opportunity presents itself, one isn't inclined to delay. She'd turned to me in offer but I'd shaken my head.

'Tim doesn't talk about Religion.' Jim had supplied 'helpfully', then spoke to me instead of about me, 'I don't even know if you believe in God.'

'There are some things I won't discuss, not even with you, kid. Religion is way up at the top of the list.'

'And yet you risk your life in performing one of the most Christian of services,' O'Mallory observed. 'Helping those in need.'

'What can I say? I'm a complex guy.'

She didn't press, just reminded me that 'I'll be here for four hours.'

x

The ceremony was brief and simple; a canteen of water and a packet of table salt all the 'implements' she needed. She did it all from memory; no surprise there, the likelihood of being stopped and searched for any reason, or even no reason, is a great incentive for developing a good memory.

x

She'd just finished when the _Rachael_ slammed to such a sudden halt that even at her dead slow pace we were tossed to the floor. Jim and I ran up to the deck, the sound of the laboring engine loud in our ears. When we came out on the stern, risking the use of flashlights as we looked over the edge, the reason for our sudden stop and laboring engine became all too obvious. We'd snagged a net whose ropes were wrapped around in a tight knot extending some thirty feet back, and even now tension was pulling our stopped boat backward.

'They've fouled the props!' Jim had exclaimed, displaying a keen grasp of the damned obvious.

'Get down below while I shut down the engine, come back with two bowies. We'll have to go in and–'

He'd grabbed my arm hard, and even in the dim light of the distant city on both sides of the river I could see the color drain from his face as he pointed behind us. 'TORPEDO!' He'd shouted the warning; there was hardly a need for silence now, or for the warning itself. A line of white froth was drawing itself along the surface of the Potomac, coming in very fast.

I ran for the hatch, yelling down for O'Mallory to get up to the deck. But with Jim's loud warning shout she was already on her way. When she came up and saw the danger she'd blessed herself in silent appeal; I was making enough noise. 'Jim, head for Arlington, its closer!' Without a word he went amidships on the port side and leapt into the river as I dragged O'Mallory with me.

'No!' she'd gasped, shying back as I'd pulled her to the edge, 'I can't swim!'

I looked back at the approaching torpedo coming up the middle of the river. 'Safer there!' Grabbing a double handful of her shirt, I threw her off the boat. She'd screamed until she hit the water and went under. Sparing one last glance I saw the torp was about two seconds away when I dove, aiming for the spot where O'Mallory had gone down.

The fiery concussion hit me before I reached the water.


	3. Questions

Chapter Two  
Questions

The loud bolt slams open but this time I don't move. I don't know, maybe recalling what's happened has drained me, maybe I just don't have any more hope. I never saw Jim after that night, nor O'Mallory since she'd screamed her way into the black river. Can't swim, explosion destroying the _Rachael _two seconds after she hit, maybe she's lucky and has received her reward.

Maybe today I'll get mine.

I'd wasted my breath asking about Jim - and O'Mallory. They never told me if anyone was taken alive other than me. But they sure wanted answers about us.

"Hello, Kait Todd." I greet her with as much pleasantness as I can muster; nearly none at all. My voice sounds like I'm using sandpaper instead of a larynx.

"So, you remember my name," she says with a smile, "I'm glad."

It takes a bit of suicidal inclination to try again. "When a woman grabs my balls and kicks me in the head I tend to remember her."

"Does that happen often?"

I can't believe it, she's making small talk. But I guess this is the next phase: crush my balls and kick my head off, then we're friends. "A lot more than it used to," I rasp. It's really hurting, almost becoming noticeable on a scale with my billion other pains. "Women usually tend to enjoy them."

She pulls a large silver flask from a back pocket and opens it. I can barely believe it when she extends it toward me.

"Hydrochloric acid?" I sand-gargle.

"Water. No point in asking questions if you can't answer."

I don't ask what I have to do to get it, I want it too much. And hydrochloric acid, bleach, cyanide, they'd be blessings. Reaching for the flask is a new bout of agony, but I finally make it.

I carefully bring it to my lips and let a drop trickle down. No hissing, no dissolving of no-longer-sensitive flesh; it actually _is _water.

My body screams at me to gulp it, my brain responds that the only way to do it is to let a drop at a time trickle down. I'm so dry it takes five tries before I feel the moisture going down my throat, but wonder of wonders she doesn't yank the flask away. She actually lets me drink it, waits patiently while I treat myself to the holiest water I've tasted in - in only God can tell me how long.

"Thank you," I whisper carefully when it's gone, unable to switch off the automatic, deeply ingrained response. I know she's done me no favor, I can now answer her questions, but I say it anyway.

I guess one of us has to be civilized.

x

"Why were you in the middle of the Potomac so late in the night?"

"I guess we're starting over." I give her an exasperated sigh, though I'm glad to finally hear my voice again. It almost gives me a microgram of hope. "I run a 'Feed, Bait and Tackle' store on the wharf; I was out trolling for supplies. That's the same thing I told your Inquisitor DiNozzo seventeen times already."

"Who was with you?" Her inquiry has no urgency to it. I don't believe her casualness for an instant. She is as safe as a leopard; you _can _pet it if you're willing to risk your arm being torn off.

"I think I told him that fourteen times, I was with my partner, Jim Palmer. Is he alive?" Given the choice, he's better off drowned but I have to know. I'd demanded to know before and had been ignored.

"Who else was with you?"

I try to hold my patience; not a bit surprised at being ignored. Unfortunately, I'm well past the point where I can throttle the answer out of her. Instead I just shake my head. I can withhold information too. I'd been doing it most of my life. "The _Rachael's _a small boat - or rather it _was_ - not much room for more than two."

"Yet you had a passenger. Who?"

I do not answer. Jim and I have played cards enough for me to develop a good 'poker face' and I give her my best one.

"Who was she, and why was she on board your boat?"

Always in the past tense. Maybe INCIS had found a body in the water and couldn't identify her. I'd been spared much more than a brief singe from the explosion, but if she'd fought her way back to the surface ... No, best to hope for a painless even if uneasy death.

"Come on, come with me," she urges with a smile. Having gotten used to never again seeing the outside again, I couldn't be more surprised.

"Where?"

"To join your companion."

x

We walk alone, Todd and I, down a long black corridor. Actually she walks, I sort of lurch in a controlled stagger. She might have intended to impress me with her contempt, that she does not feel the need for guards, but I know the truth: I couldn't beat her up if she helped me.

'To join your companion.' But which? Jim; I decide. He's a good swimmer, had a few seconds head start - maybe he survived the explosion. He's smart enough to stay underlet the water cushion the blast...

Across an intersecting corridor at the end of this one, ours lined on both sides with identical portals, looms a door like the door at the end of the 'long mile'. I can't help but think of _how_ Todd had meant I would 'join my companion'.

But when we cross the 'T' and the heavy steel door is finally opened, no amount of imagination or anticipation could have prepared me for the horror within.

x

The room within is small and dark but there is a window set in its opposite side, looking into an inner room and the lights in that room are on. I nearly fall into the room, my horrified stagger coming to a sharp stop against the blood smeared glass.

Jim staggers backward fast to slam to a stop against the right wall. His face, chest and arms are heavily bruised and covered with blood. His pants are torn and bloodstained as well; from within or without I cannot tell. A black leather clad Asian woman, seemingly no older than him but barely two thirds his size, comes in on him. Her blood-smeared fists smash into his chest twice, then a stunning punch to his face slams his head against the steel wall. Blood flies from his face before he slowly slumps down to the deck, leaving a gory trail behind.

"It's such a pleasure to watch a true artist at work, don't you think?" Todd asks from beside me as the woman, barely more than a girl, signals to two men who come and take each of Jim's arms and drag him back to his feet.

"No!"

When they have him pressed against the wall the woman kicks him three times in rapid succession; stomach, chest and face and he sags in the men's arms.

"Lee doesn't have a maternal bone in her body. Actually she's quite a bitch, but she does know a lot about bones."

As the two men hold Jim up against the wall the woman kicks him in his chest – even through the glass I hear the horrible sound of a sharp break! Jim stands frozen, his bloody face contorted in a mask of agony, his mouth open in a silent scream as he sinks slowly to the deck, falling onto his right side, then limply onto his back.

x

"Stop this," I beg Todd. "Please _stop _this!"

"But of course, Timothy, you had but to ask." Smiling a sickly saccharine smile she touches a button next to the glass. "Michelle, stop."

She turns to the glass, annoyed at the interruption, "I'm not finished."

"Mr. McGee is deciding to cooperate." Todd tells her with that same saccharine. I'd said nothing of the kind. "Besides, _he's_ about finished."

Jim lies on the steel deck, covered in blood and clutching his broken rib, his breaths a horrible rasp. Blood flows from his mouth – I don't want to think of why.

"Mallard can patch him up. I _need_ my exercise."

"Now Michelle, you simply _can't _keep killing all your toys."

"He'll recover."

Todd turns to me. "You can stop this; just tell us what we want to know."

I can't take my eyes off Jim writhing on the deck in bloody agony, probably believing he's the only survivor of that ill-fated cruise. I wonder if he'd even hard Todd.

"What do you want to know?"

"We know you are part of an underground 'railroad', bringing people out of the Imperial Capital. We want the names and locations of your other contacts, everyone you work with."

"I don't work with _anybody_!" I tell her passionately, "Jim and I run a 'Feed, Bait and Tackle' shop on the wharf. You've got it all wrong!"

"I'm sorry, Timothy." Todd nods to Lee.

Before I can say anything she raises her foot and brings it smashing down upon Jim's undefended crotch! His shriek fills the chambers as he doubles over, the scream lasting forever and branding itself into my conscience.

When he can scream no longer he falls back, still as death. Lee looks at Todd through the window.

"No balls, either of them."

xx

The lights go out in that room, and less than ten seconds later the two men who had helped Lee torture Jim are here with us, grabbing my arms and yanking me out of the room. When I'm in the corridor I see Lee walking away down the intersecting corridor. Her walk in that tight uniform might be enticing if she were not a cold, inhuman bitch. "What, are you just going to leave Jim lying there?" I demand as they haul me down the black corridor.

"Don't worry, he won't die," Todd assures me from behind, "easily."

"Where are we going?"

"To see someone who will finally convince you to loosen your tongue."

"You'll have better luck with a–" I never get to finish as we stop at a steel door that's slammed open with the sound of thunder. When I see what awaits within I know there can be no limit to the perversions of the INCIS.

"Oh my God."


	4. Persuasions

Chapter Three  
Persuasions

I've known Imperial perversions all my life, it's the main reason I joined the Brotherhood and worked so quietly with them, but this is beyond even my imagination.

Shavawn O'Mallory hangs suspended two feet off the deck from two chains imbedded into the overhead and attached with thick clamps about her wrists. She faces us, head fallen forward, her long red hair hanging down her bare back. When I'd last seen her she was wearing a workman's shirt and trousers. Now she wears nothing at all but is clothed in hundreds of livid red welts from the whips of the two men in the far corners of the room. Dried blood mingles with fresh, an appalling map of pain inflicted over hours, days.

I'd hoped, being unable to swim, that she had gotten lucky and had drowned. Perhaps she had kept herself afloat upon some debris of the _Rachael_, unable to give up life. I can't blame her. Jim and I had jumped and I'd thrown her off with the hope that we might live.

I hope she can forgive me for that.

x

The nude woman has been whipped mercilessly. Blood had flowed from many of the red welts that crisscross her body. But the worst is the seven thick black cables branching out from a thicker cable running upward from the deck under the machine next to the chair between us. They're clamped to her arms, breasts and legs, the last one perversely invading her.

"Oh dear God." I try to speak aloud, my words reduced to an appalled whisper; but it's enough to get the woman to stir and look up, meeting my eyes. Her lovely face is untouched by the scourges that cover every inch of her body.

Her green eyes, the color of fine emeralds, look deeply into me - and beyond horrendous pain I'm not sure what I see. I expect despair, I expect ... anything but what I do see. This, I remind myself, is a priest. I think, looking into her eyes, I remember something about hands and spirit.

x

"Are you ready to talk?" Todd asks me as I stand staring, appalled at what they have done to the helpless beauty. Every inch of her flesh is striped with livid, bleeding welts.

I don't even need the urging of O'Mallory's short shaking of her head. "I can't." One of the men comes out of the corner, raising his black whip. "_No_! Don't hurt her anymore!"

"No, Mr. McGee," Todd says, raising a hand to halt the man, "what you see is merely a few days of softening up. We are not gong to hurt her now. _Yo__u_ are."

"You're crazier than I ever imagined if you think _I__'m_ going to do anything to her."

"Oh, but you're wrong. Now that you are here, _you _are going to take up the task of torturing this lovely woman for the information you refuse to share."

x

Before I can say a word the two men force me forward, their fellows helping to get me down into that chair and tying thick ropes about my arms and legs and several times about my body. Then they start attaching wires, much smaller than the cables that invade O'Mallory, to my wrists, arms, chest, head and, by rounds of tape, into my closed fists. When they back away, they leave Todd leaning over me, though she doesn't block my view of the nude woman hanging before me.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the standard polygraph, or 'lie detector'. You may notice, however, that there is nothing standard about this one." Particularly absent are the paper and needles, but from the machine the cable snakes along the deck to where it branches out to different parts of O'Mallory's body.

"Now understand me well, because we are losing patience with you. Your little band as already taken up far too much of our time and Chief Inquisitor Gibbs is growing very angry with me, so now we'll have the _truth_.

"Every time you lie to us, this lovely woman will pay the price. Tell us the truth and she'll be safe; lie to us and _you'll_ be the one who causes her pain. I don't particularly _care_ who confesses." She looks up at O'Mallory. "If it gets to the point where you can no longer stand being tortured, feel free to confess." She throws a switch on the machine, but I catch the look in O'Mallory's eyes. We both know what is at stake.

"Who is she?" Todd asks. I am guided by the look in the silent redhead's eyes; she doesn't want her identity revealed so I give the only possible answer.

"I don't know," the words are no sooner out of my mouth than O'Mallory convulses in agony, crying out as a surge of electricity courses through her body. She jerks convulsively with the current running through her, screams in pain but it's ten long seconds before the electricity stops and she hangs, gasping.

"That was about double the charge running through the standard home; survivable but _very _unpleasant I'm sure. Let's try another one," Todd asks relentlessly, "why was she on board your boat?"

O'Mallory shakes her head, tensing for another blast of pain but I have a better idea. "She was a passenger."

No surge of electricity assaults O'Mallory's body. "Clever; but why was she a passenger?"

"She wanted to go to the Palisades." Again no blast of electricity sears the nude woman. I don't believe I'll get away with this for long.

"Who told her you could get her out of the city?"

I mentally apologize, but I can't answer that question. O'Mallory visibly prepares herself. "I don't know."

x

No amount of preparation could have prepared her as she screams, body convulsing wildly, thrashing about at the ends of the chains for an unendurable ten seconds before the charge ceases and she hangs, unable to muffle her sobs.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that the charge _doubles_ with each use?" Todd asks sweetly.

"You soulless, monstrous _b__astard_!"

"I suggest you answer more truthfully in the future. Why was she trying to get out of the city?"

O'Mallory has already forced herself to silence. I sense she will not give the monster the satisfaction of making her cry.

"She was going to be captured."

"Why was she going to be captured?"

I don't know why I stall, there's no point. The truth is finally dragged out of me. "She's a Priest."

Todd turns to O'Mallory, as though seeking confirmation of this news. "A _Priest_?" She steps up to her until she can see her without raising her head. "Is that what you are; a Priest?"

O'Mallory nods, her voice little more than a whisper; "Yes."

"Whyever would anyone want to be a Priest? Don't you know there is no God? The Empire has proven that. Without a God, why would there be Priests?"

"There is a God," O'Mallory declares with greater strength, "He exists, and He rules."

"And he's doing such a fine job of it." Todd tells her mockingly. "Even your chauffer doesn't believe. There've been no indications of religious interest in the weeks we've been watching him, waiting for a fugitive such as you to come along. He knows that religion is the opiate of the people."

x

She takes a step back. "I'm giving you each the same chance. I don't care who tells me the story, so long as one of you tells me. Who were you staying with while you were in the city?"

O'Mallory doesn't answer and asking me the same question produces no pain; I really do not know. That's the type of question I never ask my 'passengers'.

"All right, maybe the shocks have already fried some of your brain; we'll try a simpler one. Who told you to go to McGee?"

Neither of us answers that one.

Todd pushes a button on the machine and O'Mallory shrieks, head thrown back, body jerking wildly under the chains. Her scream ends but there's nothing more, just the jerking and her wide eyes, but she can't breathe, she could suffocate up there, never breathing again and I shout myself nearly hoarse calling Todd every vile name I can dredge up.

Then it stops and she can breathe, huge gulps of air, panting wildly, her chest heaving as though she can't drag the breath in fast enough. She hangs panting and gasping ... and Todd smiles.

Gradually the desperate panting subsides.

"Who sent you to McGee?" But O'Mallory doesn't say anything. Todd turns to me. "Who was the Contact? Tell me or I'll kill her."

"Empty threat."

But then O'Mallory speaks, her voice a strained, rasping whisper. "But like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth."

x

Todd stabs the button and O'Mallory convulses under the redoubled charge. Her scream is horrible, it sears itself into my soul. When she can't scream anymore she still convulses, eyes wide, face a mask of agony but the only sound in the room is the crackle of electricity.

It must be nearly twenty seconds before she finally lets her finger off the button; O'Mallory is left swaying slightly from the chains, her body hanging limply. A single broken sob escapes her before she clamps her lips shut; only the tears trailing down her cheeks give evidence of her pain.

"I'm not a patient woman," Todd declares, "and silence will not help you. Answer my questions." She turns on me. "Who sent her to you?"

I don't have to answer, O'Mallory does. "God."

Todd presses that damned button again and O'Mallory convulses wildly, her shriek ending in silence for, when she no longer has any air, she can't draw a breath as her body jerks wildly. My shouts reverberate off the walls as I struggle to break the ropes that bind me. When Todd finally stops the torment O'Mallory hangs limply, gasping for breath, straining to draw huge lungfuls of air.

"Doubling every time, that was _sixteen_ times the first one. Do you have any _idea_ how strong the next one will be?"

A distressing odor of cooked flesh reaches me and I do not have to guess. O'Mallory cannot contain the groans that come with each gasping breath, and her body is burned where the cables are attached to her flesh, inside and out. Todd steps away from the machine and that damned button. "I don't believe she'll survive another lie, so be very careful, McGee; the next charge is definitely _yours_." She smiles in victory. "Now, tell me everything, the whole story; names, dates, places. Leave nothing out or you will _kill_ her."

x

"Stop," O'Mallory gasps, "wait." She seizes Todd's attention, "I won't ... have my death ... on this man's conscience. _I'll_ tell you everything ... everything I know."

"O'Mallory..." There has to be a way to beat this, but she will not hear me and Todd has already latched her attention onto the gasping woman.

"I'll tell ... you why I chose ... this life; why I was here ... I'll tell you names ... places ... dates ... everything I know."

"The truth this time."

"The truth ... I swear ... every word ... the whole story ... Gospel. I ... won't hold anything ... back. I'll tell you why I'm here ... why I'm doing it … _everything_."

Todd is immensely gratified, turning to one of the men, "Make sure you record all of this."

"Every word," he assures her, pulling a mini-recorder from his black uniform jacket

Todd can see O'Mallory has gotten her breath back, stepping closer while I look on with infinite regret, wishing she had been stronger. I have no idea how many lives would be lost in this confession, hating the victorious Inquisitors as they crowd close to hear every word.

"Begin," Todd commands, "tell us everything!"

O'Mallory takes a deep breath, preparing to tell a long and costly story.

x

"In the beginning," she meets each of their eyes, having their rapt attention, "God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said 'Let there be light' and there was Light."

Todd is livid, absolutely furious while I cannot help but grin. O'Mallory had promised to tell why she chose this life and did what she did and she's keeping her promise.

"And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness -."

Todd stabs the control and O'Mallory screeches, her body convulsing wildly under the chains. The charge is so powerful the room's lights dim; maybe the whole building's as I scream at Todd to stop, tearing furiously at the ropes that hold me.

The sadistic bitch doesn't stop!

O'Mallory convulses wildly under the monstrous charge, unable even to draw a breath to scream and I smell charred flesh as her arms, breasts, legs and the inside of her blackens.

It seems to last an eternity, long enough for the unbreathing woman to suffocate were she not being electrocuted. When Todd _finally_ releases the button O'Mallory's body stops and slumps limply, hanging motionless from the chains. Her head is down, body swaying from the violence of the assault. She's not moving, not crying out, not breathing.

"Is the bitch dead?" Todd asks. One of the men stops her sway with his hand on her crotch, a final indignity the priest never knows. From where I sit there's no need to check; Shavawn O'Mallory has become a martyr to her Faith.

"Dead, Inquisitor."

x

I put my head down, whispering as softly as I can. "Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord. Let Light perpetual shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God–"

They finally realize what I'm whispering and their hard fists stop me from finishing aloud, but I continue, stubborn as ever, until the darkness consumes me.


	5. Epilogue

Epilogue

I wake up on my steel slab in my steel cell, and as consciousness begins to return so does the pain. Slowly and gradually it fills every part of my body until I long for the sweet oblivion, or even to pass on to whatever place Shavawn O'Mallory has already crossed to.

I don't truly mourn her; from the instant of her capture her fate had been sealed. Death had become her only escape from the torments INCIS had abused her with in their efforts to find answers with which to kill others.

I conclude they watch me constantly, not a big surprise, for barely four minutes after I revive the metal bolt slams open and Kait Todd strides in, blackened left eye, split lip and all. The door slams shut behind her so hard it's like thunder, but I am through jumping.

"Well, nice to see someone else is having a bad day."

"This is the result of my report to Chief Inquisitor Gibbs," she tells me in barely contained fury. "I've been given one hour to break you."

No matter how much it stings, this draws a smile from me. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you'll be eating your meals standing up for a while."

It takes her a moment to interpret this one; when she does her fury peaks, "By the time I'm done with you, you won't be able to stand ever again. Get up."

"By the time you're done with me I'll be dead; so go away and let me spend my last hour in peace."

"Get _Up_!"

x

Knowing that if I do not she'll only bring people into make me, I struggle to sit up and stand, but it's slow, giving me plenty of time to tell her what I really think. "You know the true pity? It's that if you were Investigators instead of 'Inquisitors' and 'Loyalty Officers', you'd have figured this out a long time ago on your own." Such is the extent of my deterioration that I'm long finished with my speech before I steady myself on my feet.

"You have one last chance–"

"I'm sorry," I cut her off, raising my hand to her, my smart-ass side kicking in again; "I thought the last time was my last chance. Of course, I _have_ been hit in the head a lot and that does tend to–' I try to evade the punch but either she's getting faster or I'm slowing down. It spins me about so I land face first on the steel deck.

"Get up!" She demands, seething. I look up, wiping blood from my mouth. Funny, that one didn't hurt as much as the first hundred. Am I getting so used to the pain that I don't feel it as badly anymore?

I push myself up, making it as far as on my hands and knees. "Up, down, up, down; if you wanted me up you shouldn't have–" Her hard boot in my ribs flips me onto my back but the pain isn't as bad as the first - or the thirtieth - time that I'd been kicked there. Yep, pain receptors are definitely getting overworked. Or maybe it's the acceptance, after seeing what they did to O'Mallory, that I am definitely going to die.

I struggle up to my steel slab and lay back down; anything to infuriate my jailor; this time making her mad enough to pull her gun on me. "Get _Up_!" Yep, she's really getting pissed.

I look at the gun as my salvation, but the sight of her threatening me with it is almost anticlimactic. "Oh, give it a rest," I tell her, barely looking at the thing. "You need answers more than you need another corpse, you said it yourself. And if you kill me without them your friend Gibbs will _really_ be pissed."

I give her a smile I just know has to make her blood pressure peak; "You're not very good at this, you know. O'Mallory would have gotten me to talk in just a few hours; and you Imperials have been at it for how many days?"

"What do you mean?" She is clearly so frustrated that I've compelled her to ask it even in spite of her rage.

"O'Mallory was a completely different class of person from you. I could have talked to her. She was a good woman who _cared_ about people. What do you care about?" I struggle to sit up. "You people do fine against Sailors and Storm Troopers, people you can intimidate;" I manage to plant my feet on the steel deck and look at her, "but there comes a time when a man has nothing more to lose; not family, not friends, nothing but life and no ambition to hang onto that for one last hour either. You can't intimidate a man who has nothing left, not even hope."

"Can't I?"

x

She goes to the door, whacks it with the butt of her gun and a second later it grinds open, but to my surprise Jim Palmer tumbles through, rolling to a stop face down against the left wall. The last time I'd seen him he looked next to dead and this is no improvement. Like me he's bloody and bruised. Shirtless, I can pick out the huge bruise of his broken rib. He's also uncleansed in all the time we've been here. He picks his head up, struggles to look about, then his eyes fix on me.

"How you doin', kid?"

"Fine," he groans, and I see he's also lost several teeth during his interrogations. I wonder how many that bitch Michelle Lee claimed. "I managed to save Shavawn O'Mallory–"

"She's dead," I tell him sorrowfully. "They electrocuted her."

Jim puts his head down. "_Shit_."

x

Through the still open door steps his worst nightmare. If Kait Todd is mine, Michelle Lee is his; and he flinches at her approach. She stops over him, glancing at Todd, who turns to me.

"The names and locations of your contacts. _Now_!"

Lee crouches down and draws a large knife from the leg sheath of her black uniform, grabbing Jim's hair and pulling his head back, the silver blade pressed to his throat.

"I'm not asking you again!"

"Good, because I'm getting sick of it," I look to Jim, calling her bluff, "right kid?"

"I've been sick of it for–" Lee digs the blade in and yanks it across his throat! Blood gushes onto the deck as she severs his trachea, the blade cutting all the way to his carotid arteries! She holds his head upward as the blood gushes out.

x

I don't know what happened next. All I do know is that when my mind comes back I'm kneeling over Michelle Lee's motionless body. It's draped backward over Jim's and there are eight bloody holes in her chest. The eighth one is still stuffed with her dagger and my hand is around the black handle.

Motion to my left attracts my attention and I see Kait Todd getting to her feet, gun still in her hand. Her face reflects her shock and outrage at the sight. I confess to being pretty damn impressed myself. She aims the gun between my eyes.

The barrel flash is bri–

x

xx

xxx

This story continues in 'Shepherd of the Lost'.


End file.
